Big data: What is it and how can it drive the property industry forward?

Big data is everywhere. It’s in our business transactions, smart devices (also known as the Internet of Things), industrial equipment, videos, and social media. It also comes in many forms: from structured, numerical data in traditional databases to unstructured text documents, emails, videos, audio files, stock tickers, and financial transactions. Big data is characterised by its size, of course, but also its complexity and continual growth – it’s an ever-evolving set of information that’s constantly expanding. 

In the past, gathering this kind of data was something of a challenge. More recently, however, huge advances – namely larger capacities for data storage, faster processors to handle it, and quicker internet speeds to transport it – have enabled businesses to capture big data and use it to their advantage. So that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Why is big data useful?

Harnessing big data allows us to find useful patterns in all types of situations. Want to better understand customers’ purchasing habits? Big data can help. Keen to uncover the next major stock to invest in? Big data will find it. Unsure where the next property boom will take place? Big data can remove a lot of the guesswork. It’s effectively the closest thing to a crystal ball.

When used in conjunction with machine learning, big data can typically pick up greater subtleties in long-term trends than a human can. (The two interrelate because machine learning tools require vast amounts of data to train each model.) It’s also timely, as data can be sourced in real-time thanks to advanced data collection tools. Lastly, it enables better judgment; with such a depth and breadth of data available, naturally, there’s greater and more superior information to make decisions.

So, what does big data have to do with us?

The property industry is swarming with data, although much of it is untapped. Despite the availability and obvious benefit of utilising big data, the sector has been relatively slow in adopting it to fuel decision-making. There have been huge technological gains over the years – with other industries quick to jump on board the big data/AI/machine learning train – but much of the property sector has more or less remained stationary. 

We’re setting out to change that.

We understand big data’s necessity for our business and the industry at large when it comes to planning, buying, selling, renovating, and building. So, we’ve developed a tech vertical that seeks to find, clean, and interpret volumes of data to complement the work of our various teams.

Our foray into big data is being led by our Machine Learning Engineer, Timothy Quill, and our Senior Economist, Dr Kevin Hoang. Together, they’re working on a few exciting projects that will dramatically change the way we make decisions.

Without revealing too much, Tim and Kevin are currently developing machine learning technology to look at long-term capital growth through real-time monitoring of property transactions across Australia. They’re also creating tools to assess the ‘health’ of a property using several key macro and micro influencing factors. In the future, Tim and Kevin will look at how we can assess which properties are best suited to renovations and evaluate the potential gain versus the cost of the renovation. All of this will streamline many of our more arduous tasks, make our buying and selling processes more efficient, and offer deeper insights into the property market. It’s a win for us and a win for anyone looking to buy or sell the property.

We’re very much looking forward to seeing where big data will take us, and the wider property sector, in the coming years. For now, though, we’re thrilled to at least be rethinking, revitalising, and redirecting the industry’s trajectory.

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